The Last Silence
by crissrific
Summary: Two boys meet in one very lonely, desperate place. A place where you go when there's no hope of getting better. But just maybe they can manage to save each other from themselves. Inspired by the novel A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.
1. Chapter 1

Kurt woke up in a haze, eyes completely bloodshot and body shaking from withdrawal. He could feel that his nose was broken and there was definitely blood coming from somewhere, but he couldn't pinpoint the location; everything was numb. His memories were no existent and it was probably better that way, to be honest. He doubted that this was a story he was going to be proud of.

"I see you're finally awake."

Kurt looked up, vision blurry and very dizzy from the lights, dim as they were. "Who the fuck are you and where am I?"

"Pleasant one I see. I'm Julia. I'm a flight attendant and you're on a plane to Chicago at your fathers request. We should be there soon." Completely irritated, he rolled his eyes at the flight attendant before rolling away from her and letting the darkness take over him once more.

The darkness is what Kurt called the peaceful times in his life. Sure, he was generally passed out from being intoxicated or too high to function, but it was still peaceful. It was a time when he could not worry about the real world and be at peace for once. Sometimes it was caused by sleep, but that was becoming rare. Kurt wasn't friends with sleep which is probably why he was so irate all the time. He just couldn't find it within himself to give two shits.

Unfortunately, he woke up to see his dads face hovering over him.

"Dad, back up you creeper." Kurt gave a weak attempt at shoving Burt away, only to make slight contact with his fathers shoulder. Burt just laughed and leaned in closer, as if to examine his son.

"I don't know who you think you are, but this is not the boy I've raised. Look at you, you're a mess."

"I can take care of myself."

"I beg to differ. You've made it more than clear that you can't, Kurt. You look like you've been beaten, trampled and backed over, yet you don't seem to care." Burt sighed before continuing. He pushed a pamphlet in Kurt's direction. "You're going to rehab. I don't know what you're on or what you do, but this has to stop. And you won't listen to me, but you have to listen to somebody. I'm driving you there bright and early in the morning. And don't even think about running away because the alarm will sound if any doors or windows are opened."

In much to pain to fight back, Kurt simply gave Burt a half hearted thumbs up before laying back on his childhood bed, letting the darkness overcome him once more.

Waking up was never an easy thing to do. His entire body ached from his hair down to his toes. His body wouldn't stop trembling, needed the alcohol and cocaine to make it through the day. Of course, he knew his dad wasn't about to let that happen. Ever so slowly and gingerly he got out of bed and made his trek to the bathroom. The smell hit him like a ton of bricks, causing him to run and empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. God love Carole, but now is not the time for smells.

Kurt got up and forced himself to look in the mirror. His nose was definitely broken and he wasn't sure how he got that black eye or hole in his cheek, He guesses he bit his cheek too hard while taking a punch. Oh well. He just couldn't meet his own eyes. Not yet, anyways. Not when he knew all he would see is shame and disappointment and rage. His stupid fucking eyes.

Kurt made quick work of popping his nose back into place, hardly feeling the pain from being numb, as well as brushing his teeth before grabbing his robe and heading out the door. He noticed the time was six in the morning before he opened the front door, ignoring the obnoxious alarm, and sat on his old front porch. Kurt made quick work of lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag. His body instantly relaxed at the nicotine entering his bloodstream and oh what a glorious feeling it was.

Burt was threatening to spit fire when he came out to the site in front of him.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing? You know smoking isn't allowed at my house." Burt made quick work of snatching the cigarettes Kurt had on the table, probably to smoke in a chain, and broke them in half. He nodded proudly as they scattered about his yard.

"I'd like to see you go and smoke those now, kid."

Kurt bit his tongue and simply flipped off Burt, going past him and into the house. Making quick work of gathering the few things he brought in last night, he took the extra time to mutter cruel things under his breath. Sometimes he just really hated his father.

"Let's fucking go. Now." He walked past Burt and got into the car, chucking his shit into the back seat. To make his point even further, he started the car and then, quite literally, laid on the horn. Nothing quite like waking up the neighbors at six in the morning. Pissing off his dad was a definite perk as well.

The car ride to the rehabilitation center was a somber one. Kurt kept purposely playing with his lighter to piss off Burt and if he happened to catch himself on fire, well, he can't say he would be too disappointed. The building came into sight. It was an old run down looking building on the outside, much like the ones you would picture for an old horror movie.

"Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me? Just because the sign says Elmhurst Rehabilitation Center doesn't mean this isn't a crack house. Please, god, tell me you're taking me to a fucking crack house."

"That's enough Kurt. Shut up and get out."

Kurt glared at his dad, grabbing his backpack he had tossed earlier, before heading into the center. However, the inside was much different than the outside. It wasn't new or remodeled by any means, but it was clean and well put together. It had the stereotypical happy nurses and disgusting smell of hand sanitizer and vomit. Great. Just great.

Kurt walked up to the first woman he saw. "I'm Kurt Hummel. Apparently I'm checking in here?"

The nurse smiled much too happily and clicked away on her computer, verifying information that Kurt didn't remember half of but agreed to anyways. He could feel Burt breathing down the back of his neck the whole time. A fact that pissed him off to no end.

"Dad. Leave. Now." Kurt gritted his teeth together, snarling ever so slightly. "I'm twenty three not twelve. I have all my shit you need to go. And don't call."

Burt left, heartbroken and defeated. He knew better than to fight back when Kurt had been using or going through a withdrawal. But sometimes he really just missed his little boy. He missed him a lot. Letting a tear fall down his cheek, Burt got into his car and rove straight home.

"So what do I have to do in this dump? Lay in bed and pretend to care? Go to meetings and act like I'm listening? AA? Chain me to a bed?" Maybe he was being a bit sarcastic. Oh well.

"No, uh, Mr. Hummel I need to go grab someone real quick. Please...have a seat." The receptionist seemed a bit concerned. Or maybe it was scared. Either way she didn't have any impact on Kurt, who was sitting in a much too hard chair watching eight year old re-runs on a fuzzy television.

"Mr. Hummel?"

Kurt turned when he heard a man's voice. Not too low and night too high. It was the perfect blend of melodious and masculine and oh, so sexy.

"Yeah, What?"

And then he saw him. And wow did he like what he saw. A classically handsome man with way too much hair gel. His eyes the shade of warm honey with some green and amber accents shooting around from the irises. His build was short, though probably not much under average, and muscular but not over so. His lips were the perfect shade of pink and his eyelashes went on for miles. In short, this man was probably a victim of many of Kurt's teenage wet dreams.

"My name is Blaine Anderson and I'll be your counselor slash mentor during your time here." Blaine offered Kurt a bright smile and outstretched his hand.

Suddenly having a dry throat and no voice, Kurt stood up and slowly eyed this man's – Blaine's - hand. He decided to take it, shaking it firmly and trying not to get too distracted by how warm he suddenly felt. Stupid withdrawals.

"My name's Kurt."


	2. Chapter 2

"It's nice to meet you Kurt. Now if you'll follow me we can go over the rules and daily life of the facility as well as figure out your individualized plan."

Blaine offered a small half smile and started to walk down a much too narrow hallway, jabbering about god knows what the entire time. Kurt couldn't honestly be bothered to listen at the moment. He just wanted to get the hell out of here and drink himself into oblivion.

Kurt followed Blaine, his movements almost robotic, sitting in the chair he was pointed to and tapping his leg restlessly. This place was already unnerving and he hadn't been here an hour.

"Let's see..." Blaine pulled out a file with Kurt's name on it and started flipping through the pages. "Let me make sure what they have is correct. Your name is Kurt Hummel, age twenty three. Your dad is your emergency contact and you're here for substance abuse in multiple forms, correct?"

Kurt confirmed everything by shaking his head, letting out an irritated breath.

"Alright, I'm going to ask you some questions so we can tailor a plan for you and get you back on the right track, sound good?"

Kurt nodded again.

"Tell me about your addictions,"

"Mostly alcohol and cocaine."

"How often or when do you start drinking?"

"When I wake up to whenever I pass out."

Blaine made a note on the file. "And the cocaine?"

"I use it whenever I can get it and in whatever form is available."

Another note to jot down. Kurt could feel the room getting warm as if there were a million eyes judging and staring at him. "Anything else you've used?"

"Anything I can get my hands on."

"Any suicide attempts?"

"Not unless you count drinking until I black out."

Blaine made a face that Kurt couldn't quite make out. It was mostly pity, he figured. But it was mixed with something else. Confusion? Sadness? Anger? All Kurt knew was that those warm honey eyes got even brighter with unshed tears stuck behind him. That, and the fact that he made Blaine look like this actually made him care a little bit. A very little bit. Granted, it mostly confusion as to why someone would give two shits about him, but it was a start.

As if nothing had happened, Blaine continued talking. Except this time he looked up from the file and straight at Kurt. And as if one queue, Kurt's heart started racing.

"I think it's time we go over the rules of the facility. I don't care how asinine you think they are, if they're broken consequences will be unavoidable. Do you understand?"

Kurt nodded, clenching and unclenching his fist.

"Alright, first and foremost there is no drugs or alcohol of any kind allowed on the grounds. Inside or outside. If we find that you have them or any paraphernalia associated with them you will be removed from the program, no questions asked. Second, we understand that sobering up is a hard process. That being said, we do allow our patients to smoke and we do provide you with cigarettes at the dispensary."

"And that is...?"

"I'll take you on a tour later and show you where it is." Blaine flashed a much too bright smile in Kurt's direction. "Moving on. You'll have a room you share with three other men. You all will have daily and weekly tasks you must complete and if everything gets done, your unit will be rewarded. Here's where it gets worse. You are under no circumstances ever allowed to go into the girls side of the rehabilitation facility. You may not talk to any woman that isn't a staff member here at Elmhurst. You are also not allowed to get anyone else's prescriptions or indulge yourself in any that are lying around. You room is camera monitored around the clock, so someone will be notified if we see anything suspicious. And finally, we will be doing a thorough bag and cavity search before you're allowed to leave my office. So if you'd stand up for me."

Kurt let out an irritated huff and stood up, ignoring the way Blaine ran his hands all across his body. Ignoring how much he liked the way his hands were soft, yet assertive and gentle. And definitely ignoring the way his tongue stuck out just a little bit when he concentrated. Definitely.

"Are we done yet? Because I'm not an idiot. Why would I sneak something in here in my pants?" Kurt removed Blaine's searching hands from his body and stared him down disapprovingly. "Look, I know this is all protocol, but you're getting much too intimate for a simple cavity search. So just believe me when I say I don't have anything. Besides, you said yourself I'm on constant surveillance. I'm sure your little spies will know in no time flat if I do so much as breathe the wrong way."

As was typical of an angry Kurt, he stormed off. Except it didn't quite have the same effect seeing as he ran face first into the locked door. "What the actual fuck? Why did you lock us in here?" He glared daggers at Blaine, trying to stop the bleeding that was coming from an unknown source.

Blaine simply laughed. "I didn't lock it. It's a safety feature on all the doors here. And if you'll look down," He pointed next to the door knob, "You'll see a green button that you push to open the door." He walked over and pressed the button, effectively opening the door. "I think we better go to the nurse's station and get that bleeding checked out."

After a much too long and much too animated walk down the hallway, they were finally at the nurses station.

"Oh, honey. What happened to you?"

"I ran into a door. Can you just give me something for the pain?

"Oh. Uh, we can't give you anything for pain since they all have a tendency to become addictive. But we can clean you up and write you a prescription for some pills that will help take the edge off. I'm sure Blaine here can walk you through the dispensary rules and how to use it effectively." The nurse winked at Blaine effectively nauseating Kurt even further.

As fate would have it, he managed to chip four of his teeth from his bout with the door. He also re-broke his nose again, which is probably what was hurting again. Kurt declined whatever surgery they were wanting to do on him in favor of going to his room to sleep. He did let them clean up the mess of blood and reset his nose, though.

With a grumbled and barely audible thank you directed at the nurses, he was back off with Blaine. Following him through a pair of double doors and coming to a halt outside something that looked like the window you would see outside an old auto repair shop or school cafeteria.

"Well Kurt, I give you the dispensary. I know it looks like nothing special, but this will become your favorite place in Elmhurst. I'm sure of it." There was that stupid too bright smile again. "Anyways, there's someone on duty here during normal functioning hours. But seeing as it's night I'll show you how to use the automated system."

Really, a trained monkey could use this system. All Kurt had to do was stick his prescription into a slot. A machine determined if it was real or fake and then dispensed the medication accordingly. It was more or less like a watered down ATM machine. And if you wanted cigarettes all you had to do was punch in your patient number and hit a button. Apparently there was some sort of allowance, which Kurt didn't care about and paid no attention to when Blaine explained it, and as long as you weren't over that for the week they would dispense up to three packs at a time. Kurt opted to get out one as well as a lighter – of course standard one light only ones – and followed Blaine through the rest of the rehab center, nodding half heartedly as he pointed out various areas and people.

"No offense, but you're too fucking perky. Please take me to my room and wrap up this damn tour. I'm not really retaining anything anyways." Maybe he was a bit harsh, but he didn't care. He hurt everywhere and couldn't even drink or take anything to numb it. This really was like hell on earth.

"Yeah, sorry." Blaine looked absolutely defeated, but Kurt had no idea why. He wasn't worth Blaine's attention anyways. Blaine led him down a hall and to the door farthest down the hall on the right.

"Here's your room. And here..." he dug around in his pockets, "is your key. If you were ever to misplace it let me know and I can get you another copy."

"Yeah, thanks. I'm gonna go now." Without another word, Kurt went into his room. Little did he know that just outside the door Blaine had sunk down against the wall. His head in his hands and crying silent tears that no one would know about.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** - I'm sorry this took so long to get posted. Real life got in the way, but I will do my best to not take a month to get the next part posted. If you're still around, I hope you enjoy this chapter! No warnings for this one.

The memories were becoming far too much for him; images of his own stint in rehab were all rushing back into his memory and overwhelming him. Blaine had always promised himself that a patients would have this kind of impact on him – they couldn't. Because getting attached to patients was a dangerous thing considering a lot of them literally ran away or offed themselves when the pain and suffering became too much. Getting attached only hurt him in the end. But with this new boy it was different. He could swear that he'd seen those blue eyes somewhere before. They weren't the kind of eyes that were easily forgotten.

Quietly, Blaine took a deep breath, wiping the tears from his eyes and got back up on his own two feet. He walked back down the hall towards Kurt's unit, Sawyer he remembered. He needed to find Kurt and go over a few more ground rules. He had to find Kurt and not break down crying. He had to.

Kurt wandered down the hall, ignoring the weird breakdown from the dude with too much hair gel. Bernie? Blake? Fuck it, it wasn't important. He looked down the hall of the unit he assumed was his. There had to be at least a hundred doors up and down the hallway. It was like the college dormitory from hell. Kurt looked down at his piece of paper that he received earlier and started his trek down the various hallways looking for a 209 on one of the doors.

Finally, he came to right door and dug into his pocket for the key he was given, putting it into the handle and jiggling the knob until it opened. The room itself is nothing spectacular, there was a room with four beds and four nightstand and four dressers. There were two other doors, one led to the bathroom and the other lead to the unit's rec room slash cafeteria. Kurt looked at the empty bed, assuming it was his and went to lay on it, ignoring the two other men looking at him like they just witnessed a streaking on the highway on rush hour traffic.

"Uh, hi? Do you not know how to be decent or something?" A short man that looked like he was built like the butt of a sledgehammer spoke up. He had long hair, a beard and thick southern accent. He looked to be somewhere in his early to mid thirties.

With an irritated groan, Kurt sat up on his bed and faced the other three men. "I'm Kurt. I'm being forced here by my dad and I like alcohol the most, but I'll take anything I can gt in any form." He paused, ignoring the obnoxious burn from the hole on his cheek. "And you all are?

The shorter man spoke up again, "I'm Larry."

"And you are?" Kurt looked at the other man. He was rail thin and even older than Larry. He was tn and much too happy for a place like this. How do people smile here?

"I'm Warren. Larry and I were about to play cards. Did you want to join?"

"No, I just want to sleep. Sorry."

The two nodded and didn't offer up anymore words, not that Kurt cared. He leaned back and drifted off for a bit. At least, until he felt some sort of obnoxious presence over him. Kurt opened his eyes to find a man looking at him.

"What the fuck? Get away from me, freak."

He was a clean cut man of medium height. Again, much too perky for a place like this. He doesn't move, and instead continues speaking.

"You're new. I'm John."

John's eyes are empty. Maybe he isn't so happy.

"Yeah, I'm Kurt. Seriously move, this is creepy."

John finally moves and Kurt sits up in the bed. John sits on the end of the bed and has a card in his hand.

"Here, take it."

Kurt takes the card and laughs. It's a business card that reads: John Everett. Sexual Ninja. San Fransico and the world.

"You realize you're in Ohio, right? Might want to change that demographic a bit." Kurt throws the card back at him. "I'm not really interested, but thanks for the flattery."

"Say, Kurt, would you maybe want to go grab some food and talk a bit? You seem like someone I could at least be friendly with."

Kurt sighed as his stomach growled. "Yeah, I guess."

The doorknob clicked right as Kurt stood up and all four men looked towards it. There stood Blaine.

"I'm sorry to intrude, guys. I knocked but I don't think anyone heard me. Uh, no one's in trouble but can I borrow Kurt for a few minutes?"

Blaine's eyes were still red an bloodshot. Old Kurt would have asked what was wrong, but this Kurt was still too fucked up to even make the connection.

"Actually, I was going to go hand out with John here for a bit..."

"Kurt, please. I just need a few minutes of your time and then you're free to do whatever you were planning on doing. Well, within the rules of course."

"Fine." Kurt huffed. "John, I'll be back in a few. Sorry."

Kurt glared at Blaine as he walked into the hallway with him. "What the hell do you want? I thought we were done when you started crying like a five year old?"

"Kurt stop talking for a few minutes so I can finish telling you the rules."

"Don't tell me what to do."

Kurt, please.."

"Fuck off."

Blaine simply shook his head, sighing and looking towards the floor. "So the rest of the rules are for your unit. They're fairly simple, but must be followed." He looked back up at Kurt, finally looking back into those blue eyes.

Kurt nodded, annoyed. He was really only half listening. "Are you going to talk or keep wasting more of my time?"

"I- Sorry. There are between twenty to forty men on the unit at any given time. There's myself and two other counselors for the unit and one unit supervisor. Every week a new chores chart is posted for each room. There are both daily and weekly tasks to be completed by you individually and as a group and they must be done. If one person doesn't do a task your entire room is punished. Every man is required to attend three lectures a day, eat three meals a day and participate in any and all unit activities. Obviously there are no drugs other than the ones prescribed allowed and there is under no circumstances to be alcohol or any other harmful substances at any time."

Kurt rolled his eyes, pretty sure he'd heard this same set of rules at least eight times already. The question was why does Blaine seem so distant and not as obnoxiously perky? Oh well.

Blaine continued. "Mail is passed out once a day and the staff reserves the right to open anything that they deem to be suspicious. Visitors are allowed on Sunday's from one to four. No other contact with anyone outside the facility is allowed unless your counselor, me, deems it appropriate for the circumstances. And finally, all the girls are housed in a completely separate unit on the opposite side of the building. No contact is to be made with anyone of the opposite sex under any circumstance unless it is a staff member. If you see a girl in the hallway hell is appropriate but how are you is not. If we find out you are talking to any girls you will be asked to leave."

"I'm gay. Frankly, you would have been smarter to room me with the girls."

Blaine laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes tightly. "Well that's certainly a first here."

"Seriously? There's never been a gay patient? I swear if I will punch someone if there are any ignorant assholes."

"I can promise none of the staff will care. As for the patients, we do have a zero tolerance policy in place. So if anything happens it will taken care of promptly, I assure you."

"You sound like a fucking teleprompter."

Blaine stood there shocked. "Do you have any sort of compassion or emotions?

"I did about three years ago but then I found out how much I liked feeling numb and fucked up. So now, not really. Surely you should be used to it by now working in this hell hole."

"Kurt you don't know anything about me. Please stop. Just...go do whatever you were planning on doing. I'll see you tonight for the new patient meet and greet."

Blaine took a shaky breath, being careful to not let all the memories overwhelm him again. Yeah, he was far too attached to Kurt. He was screwed.

"Whatever." Kurt promptly turned to go into his room again but stopped when he heard Blaine's shuffling down the hallway. He knew he shouldn't be so harsh on him, but he couldn't get close to him. He would just end up hurting yet another unsuspecting person. Not that anyone could want someone like him around anyways.

"Hey Blaine." It was out of Kurt's mouth before his brain could tell him to shut up.

Blaine stopped dead in his tracked, confused he turned to face Kurt. "Yeah?"

"Thanks. For everything. I know I'm an asshole, but I do appreciate what you're trying to do. So..scurry along or whatever."

Blaine nodded, smiling softly at Kurt with a happy nod in his direction. "Sure." Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all. At least, that's what he was going to tell himself so everything didn't hurt as badly. And so he didn't relapse again.

Kurt smiled as Blaine walked away. It was the first time he'd smiled in years.


End file.
